the familiar thoughts and wise sayings of a people who are known in this country principally through Missionary Reports or volumes of travels,-with whose minds we have but little chance of holding communion. Viewed in this light, his book possesses considerable interest, whatever opinion the reader may form of the Tamil poems which it contains. Of these it may fairly be said that the traditions connected with them are childish, and the thoughts embodied in the verses often very mediocre; the influence of heathenism is constantly perceptible, and the translator intimates that large omissions have been necessary, on account of the impurity of the original. So much for the dark side of the picture. On the other hand, there are to be found force and elegance of expression, a homely common sense, a keen and occasionally genial humour, and in some passages a clear, vigorous, preceptive morality, which may even recall to the reader's mind the "Church Porch" of the good George Herbert..

The following verses are from Mr. Robinson's translation of Ouvvay's Muthuray, and are a very favour. able specimen of the poems to which this volume will introduce its readers. In his opinion, "there is not a purer composition among all the standards of India" than that from which we have selected a few verses. We cannot but think that they will occasion surprise by their elevated tone:

Their friendship gain, their repa tation share, i

Their sacred paths frequent, and: with them dwell.

"The very sight of wicked men is ill, Their graceless words the ear with evil fill,

The lips with risk their attributes

portray;

And 'tis the height of self-inflicted wrong

To mingle with their sin-infectious throng,

Attend their cursed steps, and with them stay."

Yet this same poem, or the portion of it given by Mr. Robinson, on a later page dwells upon the advantages of riches, and gives the advice,"Then, toil for wealth, and prize what you acquire."

But we will look at some of its teachings which treat of lower matters than the great moral distinctions dealt with in the two verses already quoted. These stanzas are truly admirable :

"The dwelling with a frugal mistress bless'd,

Though all things lacking, is of all possess'd,

For peace, content, and cleanli

ness are there; The house not suited with a thrifty wife,

Or cursed with one intent on angry strife,

Though plenty reign, is like the tiger's lair.

"The learned to the erudite repair, As seeks the swan the placid water, where

The lotus breathes its genial

fragrance round; But like the crow, by carrioninstinct led,

That scents the grave and lives

On the question of using such writings in mission-schools, Mr. Robinson has the following remarks:-"Have not the missionaries taken needless and inconsistent trouble in editing and printing books of this order for the purposes of education? A time may come when such volumes may be handled by them in their seminaries with impunity; but at present, important as it is to recognize and honour truth in whatever associations found, and desirable as it seems to conciliate the people by paying all possible respect to their treasured literature, the propriety of using the productions of native authors as-class-books in missionary institutions, steeped with heathenism as the best of them are, is seriously questionable. Let the Church place such books, if they must be in possession, where the Government of Continental India-not that of Ceylon-deposits the Holy Bible, only on the shelves of schoollibraries. Haste without speed is not so good as slowness with safety and ultimate success. Ouvvay's works themselves, some of them the most excellent of Tamil writings, repeated by the lips of all the rising generation in the north of Ceylon and the south of Hindustan, suffice to show the necessity of Christian school-books and other useful publications in the native languages. The thought is mournful that, even in mission seminaries, for more than half a century, along with her lessons of profound wisdom, she has been left to teach the children to believe, like their fathers, in a blind fate, in a succession of dependent births, in the servile subordination of her sex, and in idolatry. Granted that her sayings are wonderfully correct and moral for a heathen writer, they

are not pure and true enough for Christian teaching. Difficult as many, particularly young people, find it to understand some of her sentences, and to appreciate their literary excellence, yet the paganism dwelling in her writings reveals itself readily to babes.”

Those who hold the opinion that "The proper study of mankind is man,"

will welcome the present volume as one which will aid them to form a juster estimate of many millions of their fellow-creatures.

The Subject of Missions considered under three New Aspects. From the German of Plath. T. and T. Clark.-The First Part of this volume, in which the author pleads for closer union between Missions and Churches, bears rather on Germany, where it is more common for missionary societies to exist in independence of any particular Church than in England, where the opposite state of things prevails. For the proposal too in the Second Part, the establishment of University Professorships to give systematic instruction on the ob jects and conduct of missions, whatever may be the case in Germany, England is scarcely ripe. Would that it were!

The Third Part is an excellent discussion of the relations of mis. sions to modern commerce. Both the good and evil side of commerce are passed in review; on one hand feverish unrest, enormous wealth balanced by abject pauperism, materialism; on the other the increase of knowledge, goodwill, and charity; the preponderance being rightly ascribed to the good. There is much that is suggestive put in a fresh, vigorous form. The writer quotes the following on the relative

colonizing capacity of European nations: "The French are good soldiers, but bad colonizers; the Germans unequalled as colonists, but only very moderately good colonizers; the English colonizers to be sure, but nearly useless as colonists; the Dutch, good colonizers, and colonists, and merchants."

An interesting quotation is given from a native Chinese work which inter alia sketches the outlines of Christianity thus: "The Lord came down once from the heavens, in order to save men from sin, and to open the way to heaven to all the children of earth. According to the sayings of the prophets, it is clear that the Lord really took upon Him a human nature in the Jewish town of Bethlehem, and was called 'Jesus,' which means 'Redeemer and Lord.' He lived three and thirty years in the world, taught the people, and gave them innumerable proofs of His omnipotence and goodness in miracles which He accomplished by His superhuman power, reason, and

holiness." Another quotation is also worth repetition. It is a traveller, Von Schubert's, musing before the Mosque of St. Sophia, Constantinople: "To-day for the first time that feeling of sadness came over me which I afterwards often experienced,—the feeling of the old Northman when he beheld his son at Algiers wearing the garments and living the life of the Turkish renegades. Thou old sanctuary of the Christian faith, the Christian dare not tread thy halls: only when passing by dare he glance into thy courts! How long must the minstrel wait outside thy prison-walls, till thou within, like Cœur de Lion, shalt strike up the well-known hymns of praise and thanksgiving? The minstrel-thy Saviour-tarries long. And thou, old belfry, thou art but small beside the minarets and their golden crescents; but when thy voice returns to thee, it will sound far over sea and land like the call of the muezzin."

MR. MIALL'S MOTION FOR THE DISES. TABLISHMENT AND DISENDOWMENT OF THE CHURCHES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

For the third time one of the members for Bradford has obtained from the House of Commons a vote on the great subject which he deems it his peculium to keep prominent before the public mind. The result has created no little stir, having been a surprise both to the supporters and the opponents of Mr. Miall's proposals. It is not unlikely, indeed, that this year's vote on the question which he annually raises will prove a new point of departure, for attack and defence alike, in reference to the Establishment;

and, on that account, be of historic importance. The following are the heads of the chief arguments respectively employed, almost in the words of the two leading speakers in the debate.

On the motion for going into Committee of Supply, May 16th, Mr. Miall moved, technically as an amendment, "That the establishment by law of the Churches of England and Scotland involves a violation of religious equality, deprives those Churches of the right of self-government, imposes on Parliament duties which it is not qualified to discharge, and is hurtful to the religious and political interests of the community, and therefore

ought no longer to be maintained." In advocating this Resolution, the mover, after urging reasons why its abstract form should not be considered a barrier to an assent to it by the House of Commons, dwelt at considerable length on each of the four propositions comprised in it. As to the first, he contended that "the Church of England was represented by a number of dignitaries in the other House; its creeds were stamped with the authority of the nation; and in almost every parish was one of its ministers, maintained out of the public resources. These ecclesiastical establishments, from their conception and mode of working, trampled upon the sentiment of religious equality-a sentiment but recently fully developed, but which always existed as an aspiration of conscience even when prevented by an unripe condition of society from asserting itself...... The principle of religious equality, though possibly the last of human birthrights, was not on that account the least valuable." The grievance occasioned by a violation of this “equality," he held, was not a sentimental one, it "deteriorated" both the griever and the grieved: "what wrongs of a grosser kind ever evoked more passionate resentment?" In maintaining the second proposition, which declared that injury is inflicted on the Church of England as a religious organization by its connection with the State, Mr. Miall asked, "Were there not large numbers of her own devoted adherents, High Church, Low Church, and Broad Church, who deemed it impossible for her to do the work she was qualified to do, so long as she was tongue-tied, and bound by legal restraints ?......Motions in that and the other House of Parliament, speeches in both Houses of Con

vocation, papers read before Church congresses, diocesan and general, visitation charges, and pamphlets innumerable, all reiterated the complaint that the Church was hampered and shackled by the State in the prosecution of her spiritual mission. She could not organize her machinery, revise her formularies, shorten her services, adopt a new Lectionary, or prevent the sale of the cure of souls without having recourse to a secular Legislature in which all creeds were represented." On the third part of the proposed Resolution, the honourable member asked, having mentioned the Athanasian Creed and the memorial respecting it recently subscribed in response to the invitation of Lord Shaftesbury, "Was that House qualified to legislate on any such subject?......The subordination of the Established Church reduced her to a position of total helplessness in regard to the management of her own affairs, and placed her in the position of a branch of the Civil Service...... Within its proper sphere there was, perhaps, no institution which had secured a larger amount of good government than the British Legislature. But no one could at the same time contemplate with pride its action in the department of ecclesiastical legislation." On the fourth of the averments which he sought to verify, Mr. Miall "did not mean to deny that the Church itself, as a religious institution, had done much good;" but, owing to its association with the State, it had "shown itself to be uniformly hostile to great measures intended for the general good of the community." In support of this grave charge, reference was made to the resistance of the Establishment in the cases of the abolition of the Test